The kickoff will be in Tampa, FL, on May 23rd, followed by a Fort Lauderdale, FL town hall on the 24th. We will be joined by poker coach and mindset expert PPA FL State Director Donna Blevins (PokerMindsetAcademy.com). Aside from great discussion, as an added bonus Donna will offer a one-hour complimentary poker training session! So, I hope everyone in the area will join us for a great evening.

On the advocacy front, as the fight for poker rights continues on Capitol Hill and in statehouses across our great nation, it is imperative that we all keep up the pressure on our lawmakers to ensure that they know we want and expect our rights as poker players to be respected. You received an email yesterday encouraging you to meet with your Congressman over the Memorial Day recess (here). I hope you will take advantage of this opportunity to make yourself heard one-on-one with your elected representative. Can I count on you to participate?

Speaking of ensuring we are heard, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Facebook page recently banned many poker enthusiasts from posting on their page. As we poker enthusiasts have business before that committee and as all posts there were respectful and courteous, I was outraged by this attack on our right to freedom of speech as well as our right to petition government for redress of grievances – rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. I sent the Committee an email requesting an explanation for this action. Many other poker supporters wrote them as well as part of the Poker Daily Action Plan. I am pleased to report that the Committee reinstated all previously banned posters and is again allowing posts advocating for legislation to license online poker. As you can see, we are being heard. For more information, please check out the story here.

Speaking of taking action, I hope everyone will continue to do just that. Please visit theppa.org/takeaction today!

The PPA rallied the troops to make sure that of the millions tens of thousands of people jumping up and raising their hands with a question, at least one that got heard was about online poker:

Don’t forget today at 2PM EDT, President Obama will be hosting a Twitter town hall and answering questions tweeted to him. Please take a moment to use Twitter to submit a question asking the President if he supports licensing and regulating online poker by clicking here. To follow the Town Hall as it happens, please click here.

Let’s make our voices heard. Tweet your question to President Obama now!

Proud to play,
Drew Lesofski
Director, Grassroots and External Affairs

I sent mine in. No answer … but we’ll see if @BarackObama maybe includes @Pokerati in his next #FollowFriday.

UPDATE: Follow this guy, New York Times politics blogger, to see what questions got asked and how they got answered.

Though it would be great if Obama could answer a poker player with, “Yes, I support it obv. If I don’t win re-election I will be playing a LOT on WSOP.com” … I wouldn’t really expect the President to express support (or opposition) for a specific bill that isn’t further along in the process of getting to his desk — too many intangibles for him still — nor support or any issue involving Big Casino influence without knowing what the bill is.

But still, this probably won’t be the last White House Tweet-up … we can expect more from Obama and other candidates as the Barton Bill and possibly other poker-relevant legislation moves through Congress. Kinda like calling in to a morning radio show to make a joke about whatever their skit of the day was … you gotta hope eventually poker will get through. And showing a certain type of buzz — even if it doesn’t lead to any specifically answered questions — also plays a role, as you can suspect his staff will be parsing the complete #AskObama Twitter log to give a report that allows the President to theoretically claim to be in touch with the pulse of America.

Check out this video interview with Obama’s former chief blogger on the relevance of a President’s — or any politician’s for that matter — stepping into such a new forum.

The GOP’s Bad Bet Against Online Poker

You know, I’m obviously not running the poker-political show, though I do try to follow it. And I’m starting to think it’s time to amp-up the aggression on a grass-roots level. Drew Lesofski, the PPA’s director of grassroots and external affairs may not be as visible as the typical spokespeople (Pappas, Frank, D’Amato, Raymer) but he’s effectively rallied the troops — on state and federal levels — and while I’m pretty sure the new tweetforpoker.com has a purpose … bottom line … and this is only me talking here, not the PPA … might it not be time crash a few tea parties?

The message:

Take our goddamn fuckin’ money! And take it now! We want our damn personal freedoms back, and yeah, we expect America to be a better place to engage in a recreational activity legal in 48 states than Malta. We want to pay you, and those who oppose this pursuit don’t have to pay squat. And even though we don’t expect these bogus societal problems to emerge … hey, guess what, if they do, we’ll pay to clean’em up. Cool?

Hey, have you met our new 21-year-old posterboy Joe Cada? Pretty good kid …